


Parenthetical, the Second (part two)

by SerenStone



Series: Rage, Rage Against the Dying of the Light [5]
Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: F/M, Multi, Other, We Stan Ghosts in this House, We Stan Titans in this House, We Stan Warlocks in this House
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-15
Updated: 2020-05-15
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:54:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24195466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SerenStone/pseuds/SerenStone
Summary: Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight
Relationships: Guardian/Ghost
Series: Rage, Rage Against the Dying of the Light [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1743430
Comments: 8
Kudos: 5





	Parenthetical, the Second (part two)

That night Shry and Katya and Ardath sat around a fire as the two Guardians cleaned their armor by hand and Ardath hummed quietly while he assembled fidget toys for Rathna. Isaac watched from Shry’s shoulder while he collated his thoughts on Silla’s leadership into a comprehensible format. He intended to offer them to her at their next meeting. 

“Question,” Shry said. “How did you get into training the new Lights?”

“Saw one in the field and offered some pointers. They told a few others and they started bringing me questions.”

“What do you think of training them?”

Katya squinted at the fire for a moment. “Good, mostly. For me, anyway. It helps to put words to the basics again sometimes. It helps to remember what it was like when I first started. It’s humbling.” She was quiet for a moment. “What are you chewing on?”

“MU-3,” Shry admitted. “I like the way he thinks and what he does on the team. I’ve thought about taking him storm chasing.”

“And I have considered a long conversation with Marikit,” Isaac added. Noting the weight of Ardath’s attention on Shry and himself.

“I like the idea,” Katya said slowly. “I just want to be sure you don’t make commitments you’re not ready for. Not that I think you can’t handle it; just that you’ve both accepted a lot of changes to your lives lately and I don’t want you to be overwhelmed.”

“Okay,” Shry said after some consideration. “I can see that. I was just going to offer to take him storm chasing a time or two. I know they’re young, but Silla’s got them on serious missions already and they’re doing well. If I can help them catch up to her some, I’d like to.”

“I’d appreciate that,” Astrophel admitted. “I’ve worried about that a lot.”

“I’ve planned on asking her if she wanted me to work with Vice and Keen some while I’m here,” Katya admitted.

“Rathna?” Ardath asked quietly.

“Typically she keeps up with and meets every challenge thrown at her,” Astrophel noted. “I don’t know that Silla’s ever just taken her and gone out into the wilds, though.”

“Maybe we could take a training slot from the week,” Shry said. “I’ll take MU, you’ll take the Titans, and Silla can run off and Hunter with Rathna?”

“We can offer,” Katya agreed.

“I think she’ll like it,” Astrophel said. 

“I got the impression Silla does callouts,” Ardath ventured. “I could look over their system for inefficiencies or missing terms if that’s something they’d like.”

Astrophel nodded to Ardath. “I’ll run all this by Bee.”

MU popped another cherry in his mouth and chewed. When Silla had told him that today’s training session would be split up by class and Shry was going to work with him, he’d been terrified. Now he was irritated. He was all for Silla’s friends coming in to spend time with her but he did not appreciate the time he got to spend with her- the team getting tampered with. He didn’t have many friends to spend time with after all.

Shry transmatted in next to him and smiled when she spotted him. “Hey,” she greeted.

“Cherry?” he offered, holding out the package. 

“Thanks,” she accepted one and turned it in her fingers. “There’s a place where there’s a sort of almost permanent lightning storm. That’s where we’re headed.”

“Oh,” he said. “We’re doing Arc?”

Shry quirked a grin. “What did you think we were doing?” She popped the cherry into her mouth.

“Running,” he shrugged.

“Ionic Blink,” she said around the cherry. “I’m expecting that to be your connection point.”

He blinked at her. “Huh.”

“No matter how you get into it, Arc will provide you with greater damage output than you have at the moment, plus Elements gets you Arc Souls so,” she spat out the cherry pit. “It’s sort of a cross between damage and support styles.”

“You do support?” he asked before he could stop himself.

“Eh,” she see-sawed one hand. “I’m learning.”

“Cool,” he decided. “Where to?”

On the way there, Shry explained that before the Collapse the country their destination was in used to be called Venezuela. The lightning phenomenon there was called Catatumbo Lightning. 

“Fair warning,” she said after they transmatted into a marsh. He stopped grumbling about mud and wet to listen. “Arc can feel very overwhelming. Like you can burn yourself from the inside out. Like you need to drop everything and run. I know you know how to run when you feel the need; I’m gonna need you to sit with that feeling instead. Let it build up as much as you can.”

“Um,” he gulped. “That sounds terrible.”

“Only the first few times,” she said, as if that was encouraging.

“Right, remind me why I want Arc?”

“Damage output? Another form of blink? Support and damage at once?” She raised her eyebrows at him. “Giving Silla an Arc teammate.”

He forced himself to slouch. “Damn. Faer’s glowy puppy eyes got to you too?” 

“Oh no,” Shry grinned. “She has yet to equal her dad in that department.”

MU gaped at her. “That’s- I never want to see that.”

“I’m just glad I’ve never had to deal with them both at once, yet,” Shry chuckled, her hands in her pockets. “I don’t want to know how much they amplify each other.”

“Oh, they amplify mischief a lot,” he warned. 

Shry nodded once, a far away look on her face. “Yeah. Counting on that.”

“Oof,” he said. “You a masochist, then?”

“Yes, actually,” she said breezily, gesturing toward the clouds. “I think it’s about to get started.”

MU followed her as she walked toward the place where a river met a lake, stammering the whole way. “Why did you answer that?” he managed finally.

“I’m attempting to teach you; why would I start that off by lying to you?” 

“Hng,” he couldn’t argue with that. “Okay. Now what?”

“Pay attention,” she said. “Meditate on the energy movement in your surroundings.”

MU rolled his eyes on principle and then settled himself into the Void at his center, his ceaseless hunger. From there he could feel the tension in the sky, the ground and water anxious to answer. “It doesn’t come from the sky?”

“Yes and no,” she sounded pleased. “The part you see moves from the ground to the cloud. But the energy moves both ways. 

The Void within him surged and light filled his vision, followed by a sound that overwhelmed his auditory input receptors. “What the hell?” he asked when he recovered.

“That was a strike,” Shry said calmly. “I called it closer to us so you could feel it more clearly.”

“Hng, right.”

“Twenty seconds,” she warned.

“Fuck,” he breathed and closed his eyes, feeling around for the energy. It went like that for what felt like days. Shry would give him an ETA and he’d try to find it, anticipate it. Every now and then she let it go where it went and he liked that better. It didn’t feel quite so much like dying. 

“MU,” Shry’s voice broke through the haze. “Put down a Well, please.”

He did as asked without really thinking about it. Almost immediately he felt a strike incoming but this time it went _through_ him. He blacked out without losing consciousness somehow. He felt full, overfull, overflowing but not fast enough. His internal power banks were at 250% charge and it felt like bursting out of his frame, like he could feel his plates and architecture straining under the pressure. He wanted to run, he wanted to get away, but he forced himself to stay. Another crash and he still couldn’t see or hear but he knew he was flying, screaming, 400%, and exploding all at once, but mercifully he finally lost consciousness.

When he came to, he was in a Well that wasn’t his and Shry was shaking her hands as if to dry them. “Hey you,” she said, crouching beside him. “Can you hear yet?”

“That was awful,” he said by way of an answer.

“You stormtranced and didn’t blink,” she said, audibly impressed. “You’re still in the same spot.”

“You said to stay,” he reminded her.

The air rushed out of her. “Wow. You- You’re the sweetest thing. How do you feel?”

“Like I was on fire,” he admitted.

“Good way or bad way?”

“Four hundred percent internal charge way?” he offered.

“Shit,” she breathed. “I didn’t think of that. Isaac?”

“No internal damage. He switched elements long before the strike hit him,” her Ghost said.

“Thank fuck,” she sighed.

“When did I switch?” MU asked, curious.

“You had switched to Arc about an hour before she asked for the Well. Back to Arc less than point two seconds after.”

“I had no idea,” he admitted.

“I thought that might have been the case,” Shry nodded. “How are you feeling now?”

MU paused to take stock. “I still have over 100% internal charge,” he said slowly. “But I don’t feel like exploding anymore.”

“Rift.” 

He dropped one almost without thinking. It was neither Void nor Solar. “Whoa.”

“Let’s get you out of the well and see how you feel.” She hauled him to his feet.

“Shit, Warlock,” he said. “You lift or something?”

Shry burst into laughter. “What?”

“Nobody but Vice pulls me up that easy.”

“Swords?” Shry offered. “Yanking Titans out of Thundercrash craters?”

“Swords? I thought you were a Stormcaller.”

“I could prove it again,” she teased.

“Nah, it’s cool. But really? Not Dawnblade?”

“Did you not see me using a sword when Silla tethered me?”

“No offense, ma’am, but I didn’t see you at all.”

“Fair,” she decided. “Okay, we should be far enough from the Well. Hit me with Arc.”

“Not, like, a tree?” he checked.

“Masochist,” she singsonged at him.

“Yes’m,” he said, just to see if it affected her. He couldn’t tell. Shrugging, he pulled energy to his hand and launched it. A projectile issued from his hands and impacted on Shry’s chest, scattering into a bolt that shot out to either side.

“Nice,” she congratulated him. “Attunement of Control. Pulsewave can be critical to escapes.”

He decided not to ask if that did it for her. “Chaos Reach, right?”

Her gaze sharpened. “Yup.”

“Don’t tell me,” he sighed. 

“Prefer sparring?” she asked.

“Not when learning,” he admitted. “Okay, okay. All of it or?” When she nodded, he sighed and took several steps backward. He leaned into the extra internal charge and pulled. It was very much being one end of a strike. He rather thought she was enjoying herself. His energy surged suddenly and a strike landed on her. “Holy shit,” Reach blinked off without him meaning to. “Are you okay?” he was reaching for Daybreak by the time she answered.

“Fuck. Yeah, I’m good. I’m fine. I’m perfect.”

“Right, I’ll just uh. Give you a few.” MU found a drier spot to sit down and went back to his cherries. 

“Sorry about that,” she offered when she joined him.

“Are you really?”

“Nope!” 

“You take the phrase you do you pretty literally don’t you?”

Shry laughed so hard it became a cackle. “Oh man. Katya will punch me if I ever say that to her.”

“She’s an enabler then?” She was back to laughing and MU grinned, pleased with himself.

“Chameleon sense of humor, yeah?” she asked and he tilted his head.

“What?”

“You adapt your sense of humor to whomever you’re with at the time.”

“I- Yeah, I guess? I mean, if it isn’t relevant to your audience it isn’t funny.”

“Fair, fair.”

“Wait, is this why she reacted the way she did?” he asked, alarmed.

“Oh no. I don’t think we got that far,” Shry shook her head. “I think it was just the high. She was in Arcstrider so she functioned as part of a circuit more than took the bolts head on. Does she always cycle subclasses that quickly?”

“Uh, no. Just when she’s actually trying or having fun. Most of the time she spars in Nightstalker with us cause she can use Shadowshot to make us think on our feet more. Solar is her damage, Arc is her field control.”

“I don’t think I’ve seen someone switch that quickly before,” Shry admitted. “I need to compliment her on that.”

“She’s intense,” MU agreed. “It’s hard to remember that she’s only like a year.”

“Just over,” Shry sighed, nodding. 

“I’m older than everyone but Rathna,” he confessed. 

Shry nodded. “Lishan after you with Silla the youngest?”

“Yeah. I don’t know how she does it.”

“She’s a genius,” Shry said casually. “She’d been up for less than a month and she already had a solid, unbiased read on the Vanguard and the City. Was already telling me ways I was mishandling one of my projects.”

“What, really?”

“Mhmm. She’s gotten less bossy, actually.”

“That’s… huh.”

“You’re good at supporting her,” Shry said like it was nothing.

“I- uh. Thanks?”

“I got the impression she didn’t expect the fireteam to side with her in that conflict but you were right there and she relaxed when you were.”

“I- uh-”

Shry turned to look at him. “Not used to acknowledgement?”

“Silla lets me deflect,” his honesty surprised him. “I think you’d put another strike through me.”

Shry smirked. “I’d think about it at least but I’m in a good mood.”

“That’s good,” he ventured. 

“You’re good at redirecting the rest of the team, too,” Shry continued and he dropped his face in his hands. “And you kept Ardath out of it.”

“Silla told me to,” he pointed out. 

“And you did it,” she agreed. “You listen.”

“She- she was the first person not to disregard me when I said I wasn’t a fan of the way the Vanguard works. That I wasn’t willing to work on those terms.”

“Good for you,” Shry said, surprising him. “And good for her.”

“You- you think so?” he asked.

“If I were to tell you all of my problems with the Vanguard and the current set up we’d be here long past the time I told Silla I’d give you back.”

“But you-”

“Yup.”

“So being a hero sucked is what I’m hearing.”

Shry laughed. “Honey, you have no idea. Being the only one with Light was miserable.”

“Wait, Silla’s expecting me after this?”

“Mhmm. She wants the team to go over what they learned.”

“I just shocked you into an orgasm. I can _not_ do that right now.”

“Well,” she chuckled. “You have about half an hour before we start the flight back.”

“You’re like… her aunt or something. I can’t do this,” he buried his face in his hands again.

An odd, disbelieving sound broke out of her and turned into more laughter. “Honey, I absolutely refuse to be Vynn’s sister.”

“But you lik- _ah fuck!_ I can’t know these things!”

Shry laughed and laughed.


End file.
